24 And God saith, `Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind:' and it is so.25 And God maketh the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, and God seeth that [it is] good.26 And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.'27 And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.28 And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.'29 And God saith, `Lo, I have given to you every herb sowing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which [is] the fruit of a tree sowing seed, to you it is for food;30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which [is] breath of life, every green herb [is] for food:' and it is so.31 And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good; and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day the sixth. (Genesis 1:24-31 YLT)
Premise: Genesis 1:1-2:4 records a divinely-revealed history of the Earth describing some of God's miraculous interventions by which He transformed an uninhabitable and uninhabited world into a habitat in which human beings could thrive. God creates each human being as His image bearers and uniquely endows them with an eternal, morally-obligated spirit.
Chronology
The ICS formally defines the Neogene as spanning 23.03-2.58 Ma, but I begin Day 6 at the significant E-O boundary and terminate Day 6 in the Last Glacial Period.
34-0 Ma: current best fit for what could be called the Neogene Yom (Day 6).
Critical Transformations: Adoption of C4 photosynthesis by plants, expansion of grasses, origin of cattle, origin of modern animal species, origin of mankind.
Termination: During the Last Glacial Period, evidence for modern human behavior spread across the globe.
During the Oligocene (33.9 ma to 23 ma) God created C4 photosynthetic plants.
During the Neogene (23 ma to 2.58 ma) God created the kinds of mammals and other animals that humans interact with and depend upon the most in the world today.
During the Quaternary (2.58 ma to present) God created mankind. The first humans, Adam and Eve, to bear God's image probably lived about 60 to 80 thousand years ago.
75 Thousand years ago the Toba Catastrophe dealt a crushing blow to earlier species of humans such as the Denisovans in Asia and Neanderthal to the North. Although both species survived long enough to interbreed with humans and leave their genetic markers, their numbers were diminished, preparing the way for the ascendency of modern homo sapiens.
Only God knows exactly when mankind had developed far enough that He would say, finally, it's time to make one in My image and breath into him an eternal soul. But eventually God did, and the story of this remarkable event was either passed down orally through Adam's descendants until it was finally carved into a tablet that would eventually be incorporated into the Bible, or it was revealed directly to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Either way, humanity is blessed to know where we come from, who made us, and why.
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